Urban Champion
Introduction
Urban Champion was developed by Nintendo R&D1, produced by Gunpei Yokoi, designed by Makoto Kanoh, and scored by Hirokazu Tanaka, releasing on the Famicom and the arcade VS. System in 1984 before reaching the NES in North America and Europe in 1986 as one of the console’s original launch titles. Nintendo built it as a direct evolution of the 1984 Game & Watch title Boxing, and it holds a genuine place in the company’s history as its first 2D fighting game, predating the studio’s next attempt at the genre by nearly a decade. Two street brawlers face off on a simple city block, trading punches aimed high or low while trying to knock the opponent back far enough to send them tumbling into a manhole or off the edge of the screen, with an occasional flowerpot dropped from an off-screen window adding a bit of environmental chaos. Despite its historical footnote status as an early fighting game and NES launch title, Urban Champion has long been remembered as one of the weaker games in Nintendo’s early catalog, with especially shallow, repetitive combat that hasn’t aged well compared to the landmark titles the same console would soon deliver.
